Chapter Twenty-Two

TUCKER

“What the hell are you doing, Tucker?”

I stare off at Emma’s room, a sinking feeling in my bones, the kind of feeling that’s lighting up warning signs in my head, telling me that I just fucked up everything with Emma.

We’re just having fun. Fuck, why the hell did I say that? My initial thought was to protect Emma, to save her relationship with Sadie. I thought if I made what we have between us seem casual, Sadie wouldn’t be as mad, but it had the reverse effect. Instead, I hurt Emma.

“Tucker, go after her?” Sadie says.

I rake my hand through my hair, my heart pulling in Emma’s direction, but my head fucking with me. “Why did you come here?” I ask, malice in my voice.

Sadie takes a step back from my unwarranted anger. “Emma left her book in my car, and I wanted to make sure she had it. Why are you angry at me?”

“Because,” I snap while I start to pace the room. “Because you’re the one thing that could fuck up this whole thing.”

“Me?” Sadie points to herself. “How could I possibly be the reason to fuck up anything between you and Emma? First of all, I had no clue anything was even going on between you two. Second of all, I’ve moved on, Tucker, so Emma should have nothing to worry about in that department, unless . . .”

The way she trails her sentence off grates my nerves. “Unless what?”

She takes a step forward and I take a step back. She sighs and continues, “Unless you haven’t moved on.”

“I have,” I answer quickly. There is doubt in my mind that I have. I don’t look at Sadie and wish she were still mine. I can’t. I feel like my heart has moved on but not my head. Isn’t it usually the reverse? Isn’t it the heart that takes longer to heal? If that’s the case, then why am I still all caught up in my head, like there’s a giant roadblock there, stopping me from making any goddamn progress?

“If you have, then there shouldn’t be any worry in Emma’s eyes.” Sadie gestures to the pictures on the mantle and then around the living room. “This seems like a hell of a lot more than just having fun. And from the way Emma has been MIA lately, I’m going to assume what’s going on between you two means a lot more to her than the casual fling you portrayed.”

“It means more to me too,” I say softly and pull on my hair. “Fuck.”

“Does she know that?”

Frustrated and angry at myself, I direct that anger at Sadie. “I really don’t need a fucking counseling session from you right now, Sadie.”

Not taking my shit, she steps forward and pokes me in the chest. “It sure as hell seems like it. Tell me, if I went into the second bedroom, would a crib still be in there?”

My eyes snap to hers, rage blasting behind my lids. “Go ahead, Sadie, fucking talk about the baby we lost, see where that gets you.”

“You can’t keep living in the past, Tucker.”

“I was doing fine before you showed up.”

“Were you? Or were you just pretending you were fine? How can you ever be fine, Tucker, if you still have the past resting in a bedroom a few short feet away from Emma’s room? Does she even know what’s behind that door?”

I shake my head, hating myself, hating how fucked up I am, hating how Sadie’s miscarriage still hollows me out into a shell of nothing every time I think about it. Every time I think about her.

“How do you think she feels then? You devalued what you two have in front of me, the person she’s probably most terrified of when it comes to you because of our history, and you still have things hidden from her?”

Not to mention fucking rule number six. Shit. I’ve fucked this all up.

“Fuck,” I mumble and take a seat in one of the armchairs. Sadie sits across from me on the couch and places her hand on my knee.

“Tucker, I care about you, and all I want is for you to find peace and be happy. It seems like Emma is your happy, but the peace, that’s within you. You need to find acceptance and move on, until you can do that, you can’t fully be with Emma. And I love that girl. She doesn’t deserve to be strung along, only being handed half of you.”

She’s right, I hate that she’s fucking right. But something I desperately wanted was taken away from me. How do I just become okay with that? Find peace in that?

“How did you do it?” I ask, Sadie, my eyes trained on the floor in front of me.

“How did I do what?”

“How did you get over the loss of our baby? How did you move on?”

“I don’t ever think you get over it, Tucker. Our baby is a piece of you that will always rest in your heart. Sometimes you have to look at it in a different light. We weren’t ready and our relationship wasn’t healthy. Maybe there was some powerful cosmic force that saw we weren’t prepared mentally. It wasn’t our time and that’s what we have to focus on.”

“I was ready,” I say on a whisper. “I was ready to be an amazing fucking dad.” My throat closes up just thinking about how I had it all planned out in my head. How I was going to get up in the middle of the night and help with feedings, how I was going to be master diaper changer, how I was committed to giving our baby a healthy and loving home.

I was going to be better than her.

I was going to be so much better than her . . . my mother.

I was going to prove that bad parenting isn’t hereditary, that you can break from what’s expected of you, rise above it all, and be the antithesis of neglect and hate.

“You still are going to be a great dad, Tucker. You’re young, and have a lifetime ahead of you to show the world the thoughtful, genuine, and caring man you’ve become despite the home you grew up in. Be sad about the baby we lost, but don’t let it dictate the rest of your life.”

Her words ring true in my head. That’s what I’ve been doing. But how? How do I prevent that from happening? The loss of my dad dictated both my physical and emotional poverty. The loss of a mother’s nurturing hand in my life forced me into a job I love and am damn good at. The loss of Sadie meant I lost my best friend and many past connections.

That loss allowed my soul to meet my Emma.

Losses aren’t all bad. In fact, losses can bring about good. Different but good.

Be sad about the baby we lost, but don’t let it dictate the rest of your life. That’s what Sadie’s done. I need to accept what we lost. To focus on my future. No, not my future. If there is one thing that is abundantly clear now, it’s our future I want. The one I want with Emma. The one I hope I can rectify with Emma. I want us.

Because there is one thing I know for certain. Losing Sadie and the baby crippled me for a time, but losing Emma will destroy me.

***

Sadie left a little while ago. I took my time cleaning up the broken pot and locking up the house before I went to Emma. I needed to get my head on straight before I talked to her, before I apologized for being a total ass.

There isn’t a light shining under the crack of her door so I look at the time on my phone. Past ten, shit. Unsure if I should knock, I waver between what to do. If she’s sleeping, will she want to wake up and have a conversation? But if I wait until the morning, will that be too late? I’m thinking the latter is not the way I want to go so I knock. When I don’t hear her answer, I open the door a few inches and peek inside.

I was right, she doesn’t have a light turned on and over on her bed, she’s in a curled-up ball, her back facing me.

Needing to make things right, I walk over to her bed and sit on the side, pressing my hand on her hip. She startles for a second but then doesn’t make a move after that.

“Emma,” I whisper, hoping not to scare her too much.

“What, Tucker?” she replies, her voice groggy.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up, but I really want to talk to you about tonight.”

She turns in the bed and sits up. From the light pouring in from the moon, I can see her eyes are puffy from crying. Bitter pain runs down my spine. I did this to her. I’m constantly doing this to her, upsetting her when she’s done absolutely nothing but love on me.

She wipes her cheeks and then pulls her legs into her chest, a defensive position I don’t care for. “There is nothing to really talk about, Tucker.”

“To hell there isn’t. I was an ass back there. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“Oh, that we are just having fun?” I cringe from her sarcastic tone. “Because isn’t that what this is? Just fun? There isn’t any emotional connection behind what we have as it’s just been sex, right?”

“No—”

“Well it was for me.” She jabs me in the gut. “Just a little fun before I graduated. Isn’t that what you wanted, Tucker? Rule number one, let loose? Well, I did. I let loose, I had some fun, and now it’s time for me to focus on graduating, taking my exams, and moving on and moving out.”

I grind my teeth together from hearing her say those two words. Move out. Just hearing those words causes a deep-rooted ache within me. Move out, fuck, that terrifies me. I don’t want her to leave. She can’t fucking leave.

I try to take her hand but she doesn’t let me so I run my hand over my face, my frustration over this situation growing exponentially and my inability to voice my thoughts clogging my throat. “It wasn’t just fun for me, Emma. You mean something to me.”

“Yeah?” She nods. “Good to know.” Fuck I hate this. This is not my Emma.

“Are you going to say what we have doesn’t mean anything to you?”

Her response isn’t quick. It’s more calculated as she chews on her bottom lip, her eyes falling to her knees, trying to figure out how to break my fucking heart. I can see it in her posture, in the way she’s shutting down. For once, she’s saving herself before I can do any more damage.

When she looks back up at me, I can see the finality in her eyes. This is over for her. Too bad it’s not fucking over for me.

“You’re my friend, Tucker, so of course you mean something to me. But what we’ve had, it was just temporary, not long-term. I think it would be best to end everything and stay as friends, so at least we have that.”

“Stay as friends.” I nod, anger vibrating off me.

“Yeah, I think it’s for the best. Plus with everything changing in a month, who knows where I’ll be? Best end it now.”

“Where you’ll be, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve been applying for jobs, Tucker. Some are out of state.”

“What?” I stand, my anger blinding me now. “You’ve applied to jobs out of state? When the hell were you going to tell me this?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary . . . since we were only having fun.” She hits me with those regretful words again, but I call bullshit.

I lean forward and plant my hands on either side of the wall behind her, trapping her, forcing her to look me in the eyes. I speak low, deliberately. “You can dick around all you want, Emma, but you and I both know we weren’t just having fun. Was I scared about admitting my feelings to you in front of Sadie? Yeah. Did I want to protect your relationship with Sadie by minimalizing what we have? Fuck, I did. Did I mean any of it? No. Because what we have between us is different. It’s solid. It’s fucking beautiful. I might have fucked this up between us tonight, but moving forward, I won’t be doing that again because you mean everything to me, Emma. Fucking everything.”

I push off the wall and walk to her door just as she calls out, her voice shaky, “It’s over, Tucker.”

“Not if I can fucking help it.”

I slam her door shut and retreat to my room, my heart heavy, and a whirlwind of emotions swirling through my head. I can’t lose her. Why the fuck did I say something so stupid? Things were so good. You’re a stupid asshole, Jameson.

She’s the best thing in my life.

My everything.

She’s not moving. This is not over. That woman down there, she’s meant to be mine and I’ll be damned if I let her walk away from me. She doesn’t need to protect her heart from me. She holds mine in her hands, and I’ll never take it back. Emma Marks is mine.